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Tips for R&R of Leaf Springs and Shocks on a 68 vert

Steve,

Yes, the "expanding" nut/bolt device works as a small press to force the frozen bolt out.


When I went to help Brian (Havok1) strip his car last Winter his leaf spring bolts were stuck pretty good. I believe we used a 3-5 pound mallet and kept beating the heck out of the bolts. Both of them eventually broke free, but it wasn't without a lot of effort/hammer blows.
 
"daveSanborn" said:
When I went to help Brian (Havok1) strip his car last Winter his leaf spring bolts were stuck pretty good. I believe we used a 3-5 pound mallet and kept beating the heck out of the bolts. Both of them eventually broke free, but it wasn't without a lot of effort/hammer blows.
Click to expand...

I'm not under my car right now so I'm having a hard time visualizing the area, but as I remember there's about 3-4 inches of clearance from the end of the bolt to the rocker panel...how did y'all get mallet in there, and even more so, how did you have room to swing??

I'm betting mine are gonna be a bear, so I'm collecting as many ideas for getting those suckers out as I can!

Steve
 
As I remember we used a long 1/2" drive extension that angled..... awkwardly.... out away from the car. We had to be careful not to miss while swinging the hammer or we would have put a nice mallet head sized dent into the front of the lower rear qtr. panel/rocker panel.
 
The sawsall works great. Not a lot of room but there is enough. We just did a club members car only took one sawsall blade. actually the right rear shackles upper bolt was harder to get out.
 
"blue65coupe" said:
... take plenty of measurements. It took me 4 or 5 times to get the rear straight. You will find it tends to shift a little when torquing the u-bolts.
Click to expand...

It should only go in one way. There is a hole in the bottom of the perch on the rear, and it goes into the indexing nipple on the springs. If you can position the rear more than one way, there's something very wrong with your springs.
 
"johnpro" said:
It should only go in one way. There is a hole in the bottom of the perch on the rear, and it goes into the indexing nipple on the springs. If you can position the rear more than one way, there's something very wrong with your springs.
Click to expand...

I was thinking the same thing...
 
I'm thinking he is referring to the different gaps in the locating pins and matching spring perches, which may be able to cause some differences in installed measurements. I will take measurements, none the less, and post my results. In the meantime, I've been down with the flu, and now Santa's almost here. Merry Christmas to all!
 
Here's what mine looked like when I removed them. Didn't have a sawzall handy at the time so I did it with a grinder and some cut off wheels. It shows how the bolt gets rusted into the sleeve.

IMG_5810.jpg


IMG_5805.jpg
 
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"johnpro" said:
It should only go in one way. There is a hole in the bottom of the perch on the rear, and it goes into the indexing nipple on the springs. If you can position the rear more than one way, there's something very wrong with your springs.
Click to expand...

I'm pretty sure he/they/whoever are referring to the small difference in size between the diameters of the spring pack bolt and the hole on the perches. Yes, the bottom of the bolt will fit into the hole on the perch, but it's not a precision fit. They'll be a little bit of "float" between the bolt and the hole. Is it enough to cause a huge misalignment? I don't believe so.

Regardless, if you're able to get a measurement on there and adjust each side slightly so that they are perfectly "even", why not do it?
 
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